8 August 2025 Meeting with Demo

 The club held its August meeting at Sam Staffan's shop.  There were many bring backs and many Show and Tell items.  Here are some of the Show and Tell items.

 

Sam Staffan's Risen Vase

More interesting turnings.

Sam Staffan's turnings.

Sam Staffan's turned candle holder.

Sam Staffan discusses his turnings during Show and Tell.

A Jim Rutledge carved feather.

A Jim Rutledge carved fish.

The bring back & Show and Tell Table.

Archie Patterson's turned eggs and a funeral Urn.

 

Archie discusses his turnings.

 

Bottom of the bowl and Feathered grain.

We were fortunate to have Paul Neuburger from the Detroit Area Woodturners (DAW) demonstrate off center turning.  

Paul brought many samples of his offset turnings and provided many tips about his process.

Here is Paul's introduction remarks to off center turning.

Paul Neuburger explains what he will demonstrate.

The demonstration was recorded in six parts, so please view each section in order.  Paul brought several semi-finished turnings and after working on one he gave it away to a holder of a ticket he had given out.  Each precipitant was then requested to finish the turning and send Paul a picture of the completed turning.  

Part 1

 

 Part 2

 

 Part 3

 

Part 4

 Part 5

 Part 6 and final clip in the series.

 Archie Patterson won one of the partially turned off center bowl and took it home and finished it.  To sand the bottom, the bowl was placed on a rounded mount block and held in place by a cone shape on the tail stock.  

Bowl mounted so the bottom can be sanded.

 

 Finished product.

Bowl finished with Shellac and several coats of whipe on poly.

 

Bottom of the bowl with a bead added to the bottom.

 Many thanks to Paul Neuburger for giving out samples of his work to be finished by our club members.

 One final demonstration by Paul of turning an off center finial is shown below.

 

Our thanks to Sam Staffan for hosting the meeting and allowing Paul Neuburger to use his lathe.

Our appreciation to Paul Neuburger for coming up from the Detroit area and demonstrating his skills and methods for off center turning and for giving some of our members a few of his unfinished projects so they can finish them.   

 

14 June 2025 Club Meeting

 Sam Staffan was nice enough to host our club meeting in his shop in Mackinaw City, Michigan.  We watched some pictures on the club's monitor followed by a discussion of the show and tell items, then a drawing for the bring backs and finally a demonstration by Steve Promo of boring tools.

  

Two items from burl.  Beautifully done.

Sam Staffan had some nice small turnings made from branches.

Gary Weiermiller talked about a item he made 30 years ago that was broken by a visitor at the museum that was showing his works.  The museum's insurance paid the item owner and the museum let Gary keep the item.  It is tall hollow form and one of the early works by Gary.

Left is a butternut end grain bowl and right a small aromatic cedar bowl  by Archie Patterson

These were the bring backs auctioned off during the meeting.  

Here Steve Promo demonstrates the use of a round nose mill bit as a boring tool bit to produce a smooth interior with a pull cut.

Here Steve Promo explains how to make and use a hook tool.  Tool is made from 1/4 inch drill stock yields a very smooth interior cut.  

Thanks Steve for the great demonstrations and valuable information.

10 May 2025 Club Meeting

 The club met at the St Ignace High School with a large number of bring backs for the auction and many show and tell items.  

Here are the Bring Backs that were given away during the meeting to the lucky wining ticket.  Each ticket cost one dollar ($1.00).

Two slabs of bloodwood and three cuts of aromatic red cedar and even some finished items were part of the bring backs.

 

 

The finished bowl on the left and the hunk of wood were also part of the bring backs that some lucky members took home.  The other items were part of the show and tell session of the meeting.

The large hollow form was purchased by Steve from his mentor and both the inside and the outside are very smooth without sanding.  A testament to his mentors skill.  The green bowl is an example of Steve's double dyeing and is beautiful. 

Here are some example of a member's spalted wood work along with a beautiful box with a walnut lid. 

 

This is another example of wood dyeing to bring out the end grain of the wood.  A black dye is applied tot he wood and soaks into the end grain and a light sanding will remove some of the side grain color but the end grain color is deep into the end grain.

More member wonderful work.  A natural edge bowl with a natural edge lid with a critter on it.  Very striking eye catching.

Steve wrote on the board information about the next four meetings.  In September the remodeled shop at the high school should be available for us to meet in again.

Out in the shop Archie Patterson demonstrated the process of creating a buffed finish on hard wood using several buffing wheels to obtain different degrees of finish.  This process can be applied to wood with a hard finish applied to b

 

During the meeting Steve talked about the double dye process of curly maple to  bring out the end grain of the wood.  Here is his talk followed by his demo. 

Thanks to Steve Promo for another great and informative demonstration.

12 April 2025 Hiawatha Turners Club Meeting, St Ignace High School

 We are back from our winter respite.  Last month the are was struck by freezing rain and high winds and many members lost power or worse suffered damaged to their homes or property.  Even with these troubles many of the members showed up for our 12 April meeting and brought many Bring Backs (items to auction off to fellow members) and many Show and Tell items the members created during the winter break to share with fellow members.  Below are the Bring Back items:

A section of a tree was brought in (small log), several slabs of hard wood along with several finished or partially finished projects.  By the log is a carved bowl with a carved father on the lid.  Front is a plater, a small cherry bowl and two partially turned cherry blanks.  Many members bought a large number of tickets in the hopes their ticket would be drawn and they could choose the item they wanted.  All funds raised by the auction go into the club's treasury.  Some of the funds raised by this method were used to replace our 10 year old HP AMD A-10 processor laptop with a 5 year old HP Zbook with an eight core i9 processor and an Nvidia graphics card.  This improve the clubs ability to record, edit and post pictures and movies to the club's blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures of the members items brought in for Show and Tell.  Each member explained the item and any unique features or turning lessons related to their items.
 

From front to back are some interesting items.  The large front item is flower holder and used double axes turning to obtain its unique shape.  There are three bowls and two lidded vessels.   The large one has segment contrasting wood in the sides.  In the center is a flower with a humming bird.  All are well done.,

 

Here is a better picture of the humming bird.   Behind it is a practice piece used to learn offset turning.

Wood turners and not limited to just turning bowls and boxes.  Here are two side tables.  The left one is epoxy resin with leaves embedded.   The right one is wood and resin.  The shafts were turned as well by the member.  

Let's go down the table from right to left.  A section of wood was turned to preserve the outer beauty of the wood. This require turning the wood with protrusion spinning round to get the inside bowl shape. Center is bowl that was died to add a different character to it.   A small box with a finial.  Lower left is complex approach as a natural edge bowl is turned and then a section of wood is turned thin, soaked in water to soften the wood and then placed inside the bowl.  A rubber glove is then inflated inside the bowl to hole the this wood in place.  Glue is used to bond the thin inner wood to the natural edge bowl for a unique creations. 

 

 

Here is a close up of the bowl where color has been added creating a stunning bowl.

This is a few moving down the table.  Below the bowl with a finial is another natural edged bowl with a thin wood insert.  In the center is a large platter and to its left is another platter.

Moving farther down the tables are some fantastic platters and some small bowls.  

The large object is a ceramic bowl where the member turned wood legs.  Lower right is a natural edged bowl.  To its left is a wood bowl with bird legs on the bottoms.

Here is a unique bowl with a textured inside to look like a basket with a owl painted in the texture.  A really fantastic piece.  Now Jim Rutledge like to carve the bowls he turns and below are some where the bowl looks like a basket and the lid has a carving.  Some are birds and one is a black bear.  Fantastic work.

 

Here Steve Promo is explaining the up coming meetings.  The high school will be remodeling the wood shop this summer so the club will hold meetings else ware.  The June thru August meetings will not be at the high school.  The July and August will have guest presenters.   The September thru November meets will be back at the high school. 

Here is a video of Steve Promo turning a platter/shallow bowl while pointing out some production turning methods.

 

The members thank Steve for not only the demonstration but also for being the club president.

14 December 2024 Club Meeting

 The meeting was held at Sam Staffan's shop and was well attended.  This meeting was not on our calendar of scheduled meetings but there was interest and many people came and brought items they had made.  There were many side discussions on how to do things and a lunch was provided.   Many thanks to Sam for hosting the meeting.

There were no bring backs or formal demonstrations.  Here are some of the very interesting Show and Tell items.

Jim Rutledge brought in some boxes he made with the Hiawatha Sportman's Club   Logo on top.  He also added one of the logo plate to his walking stick.  Nicely done.  

Here is a closer view of the neat boxes Jim made.

Archie Patterson made two bowls from aromatic cedar and two vases from purple heart.  The top cedar bowl is unfinished and retains it aromatic properties while the bottom one was finish with poly which enhanced the color but sealed in the aromatic properties.  Alternative would be to finish the outside and leave the inside unfinished.  The two purple heart vessels are buff finished as the wood is very hard. 

Steve Promo brought in two rough turned bowls.  Rule he used is for every inch of diameter leave 10% in wall thickness so the bowl can dry and you will then be able to re-turn the bowl to finished state in about two or three years.   Bottom is a finish bowl.

Here Steve is explaining how to turn a platter from a slab section of a log.  During the lumber milling process the outer sections of the log are cut off and discarded.  Steve saves this sections and turns very nice platters from them.  At the end of the meeting Steve gave away several of the slabs of wood for members to take home and turn platters. 

Here are some really nice boxes and a bowl.

Here is a box with accent added and a hollow form made from four sections of wood turned twice.  First, the sections are grouped as four strips togetherand one side is turned and then the sections are rotated 180 degrees and the other side is turned.  The sections are then reassembled and finished.

Here are some platters and a burl bowl.  The platters are made from the slab cuts from a log.  See above.

This is a bowl made from a Burl.   As often happens not only is the wood patter beautiful but there are voids where the tree grew around a fault.  Still makes a wonderful bowl. 

Close up of the burl bowl showing the faults.

 

 

There was an impromptu demonstrations of a portable winch that is great help in moving large logs from the woods and onto trailers.  The winch is called a Baby Winch.

Sam demonstrated how you can move a large log from the woods to and onto your trailer using this baby winch and a cordless drill.  Make sure you have several batteries.  This version has a woven cord and the button shown allows you to release the cable and then rewind the cable using a drill motor connected to the drive shaft on the other side.  The description on Amazon.com reads: 

Portable Drill Winch of 1000 LB, Red Handheld Drill Winch with 40 Foot Synthetic Rope, Rotate The Hook 360 Degrees, for Lifting & Dragging(Red).

Sam explained that instead of hurting your back trying to roll, drag or flip a heavy log you can connect the winch to a tree and then to your log and using a cordless drill motor drag the log 40' at a time and then into your trailer, which Sam has done.  Much better then the manual come-along many people have.  

It was a great meeting and everyone learned something by sharing their knowledge.   Thanks again Sam and to everyone that came.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends.